Let the Bodies Hit the Floor
by A Deed Without a Name
Summary: Sam and Dean have always believed that perfect resurrection was impossible, and that what's dead should stay dead. So how do they react to Castiel's ability to bring people back with no consequences? They abuse it, of course. WARNING: Contains VERY dark humor, gore, violence, repeated (although not permanent) character death, the barest hint of Wincest, and OOCness.


**This is what happens when I turn an intrusive thought into a fic.**

* * *

Angels could resurrect the dead. This was a fact.

Of course, the details of said fact varied greatly based on the circumstances. This knowledge was embedded in Castiel's Grace along with all his other core programming, guiding him like instinct whenever he needed to bring a human back to life. It was fastest and easiest, requiring only one angel of any caste above cherub, when the corpse was less than a day old. With any luck, the reaper wouldn't have arrived by then, or at least wouldn't have convinced the soul to move on into whichever afterlife Heaven had decreed it deserved. If that was the case, then it was a simple matter of closing the mortal wounds with standard healing magic and then shepherding the soul back into the repaired body with one's wings. Or vice versa, seeing as the order wasn't terribly important.

When more time than that had elapsed since the death, or demons had harvested the soul immediately after hellhounds had mauled the body as part of a crossroads deal...things got a bit more complicated.

Operations of that magnitude usually required an entire garrison, to properly restore the body and retrieve the soul. That consisted of doing battle with demons if it was in Hell and navigating a bureaucracy if it was in Heaven. Because waging war against Hell and filing the necessary paperwork in Heaven took years and often claimed many lives, such things were rarely attempted, and even then only for the most special of cases. Such as Dean Winchester.

Castiel had explained Dean's own miraculous resurrection to him as best he knew how shortly after being assigned to him and his younger brother, and demonstrated his healing powers early on, so he'd assumed they knew the extent of his abilities. He hadn't had a very good understanding of human minds back then at all, which was why their reaction the first time he'd brought someone back in front of them had so shocked him. They clearly hadn't been expecting it. He still wasn't good at reading human body language (it was so very different from that of angels, after all, but the expressions of their faces sent him a very clear message anyway: this was something that completely changed life as they knew it. Which was a fairly common occurrence for them, as Castiel would come to find out. But this was a change for the better, which was not.

Armed with this new knowledge, the Winchesters began to pray to Castiel every time there was an unintended death they desired reversed. He hardly minded answering their calls in these situations. He was using his powers to assist the brothers in their God-given work: saving people. And the victims were always friends or innocents, dead from accidents that had occurred through no real fault of the Winchesters' own.

The latest death he had been summoned to rectify, however, had definitely not been an accident. And judging from the look of the angry, dirty soul agitatedly pacing the room and screaming obscene abuse at Castiel's oblivious charges, the victim had been neither a friend nor innocent. Needless to say, he was extremely confused.

"I don't understand," he admitted, eyes fixed on the corpse. It was that of a heavyset older man with thinning gray hair. His eyes were open and bulging, and so was his mouth, lips wet and red from the blood he'd coughed up. There was a knife buried to the hilt in his abdomen, just under his sternum. "This man is human." He hadn't died from the initial stab wound, but rather a heart attack brought on by the shock. "And you say he didn't attack you." He glanced up at the Winchesters. "But you...murdered him?"

"Yep," the brothers answered in unison, one sounding angry and agitated and the other more or less calm. Dean, seated in an armchair across from the one the body was slumped in, added, "Son of a bitch had it coming, though. Trust me."

"Y'know, Dean, there's this great new thing called self-control." Sam was very clearly upset, pacing in a strange and unknowing imitation of the man Dean had killed and running his hands through his hair. "Ever heard of it?"

"Get off your high horse, Sammy," Dean replied. "I saw the way you were looking at him. You wanted to do it just as bad as I did." He glanced at Castiel. "Guy was a total creep. Went after young girls. Get this: he was a gym teacher and track coach at the local middle school. Whole damn town knew what he was, but his family runs this place or whatever, so nobody ever did anything. He had his pick all the way up 'til he retired a couple years ago."

Castiel grimaced. With his true face, not that of his vessel, so the Winchesters wouldn't see the expression. He could see how that wouldn't align with their sense of right and wrong. Or his own. Not that the latter even mattered, because he was a good soldier and followed orders.

"You killed him because of that, then?" Castiel asked. "I understand your feelings, but...it is neither your job nor your place to pass judgement on human beings. That should be left up to God."

Dean's lips thinned out, as they often did when Castiel mentioned God. Sam jumped in to better explain the situation before Dean could tell Castiel - once again - exactly how he felt about God, though.

"We needed to know about one of his...victims. We think it's her ghost we're up against; she killed herself after he got through with her." Sam sounded exasperated. And no one could call Castiel skilled at reading human emotions (or even proficient), but he could tell that Sam also sympathized with Dean. Just slightly. It wasn't something he planned on admitting, either. "And he did tell us about her. Definitely not anything we wanted to hear, though."

Castiel looked at the displaced soul again, blackened with some of the foulest of sins and still very angry at the Winchesters, especially Dean. Definitely destined for Hell. It may have been a different story had he been devout, though, and Castiel mentally shook himself out of how deeply that troubled him, reminding himself that those above him always knew best.

He understood the motive behind the killing now, at least. Even if he doubted that it'd been an appropriate move for Dean to make. "I suppose I'm most confused about why you want me to revive him."

"Hasn't given us the information we need yet," Dean replied.

" _And_ we'd rather not be wanted for murder," Sam added. _"Again."_

"Right. Yeah, that, too," Dean agreed. So if you could make it so he doesn't remember me stabbing him, that'd be..." He made a clicking noise with his mouth, then formed a circle with his index finger and thumb. "...awesome."

"Wait. He can do that?" Sam, incredulous.

"Pretty sure he can do that." Dean. Probably far too calm for having taken the life of another human.

As they bantered, Castiel mulled it over, then decided to grant the request. After all, it'd been a snap decision made in the heat of the moment, and the victim _had_ been innocent. Relatively speaking. Also, what harm could it possibly cause?

"All right," Castiel said, interrupting the brothers. He extended a wing to guide the soul back into the body it'd been so recently forced to vacate. He really would rather not have touched him, but it seemed he didn't have a choice. "I'll bring him back." More firmly, he added, "However, this cannot become a common occurrence."

He looked meaningfully at Dean as he said this. He'd seen firsthand the damage his soul had taken in Hell, and he was deeply sympathetic, as well as doubtful it would ever fully heal. Despite that, though, it was no excuse to become a cold-blooded killer. Especially for a man as strong as Castiel knew Dean was.

Sam answered for both of them. "It won't, Cas. This is a one-time thing - it'll never happen again." He glared at Dean, who shook his head. Whether it was in agreement or dissent, Castiel had no idea. "I promise."

Knowing, as he did now, how long most of the Winchesters' promises usually lasted, Castiel could appreciate how very hard they'd tried on this one. After all, it was almost a full week before they summoned him to clean up another one of their messes.

Castiel searched for the correct words as he studied this new body, piled on the floor in the tangle of limbs and police uniform that he had fallen into when his neck had been messily broken. The correct words in English, that was. He could have flawlessly expressed his feelings in Enochian, but Sam and Dean wouldn't have understood, and he very much wanted them to.

Finally, he raised his eyes to the two of them. They were standing by the door they'd locked to keep anybody from accidentally stumbling into this office while Castiel fixed their mistake, arms folded identically across their chests. At least they both had the decency to look guilty this time.

Castiel _thought_ their expressions conveyed guilt, at least. They could also have been indicative of gastrointestinal pain.

"You promised," he told the two of them, feeling betrayed.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "We did." He glanced at Dean, who immediately unfolded his arms and threw his hands up in the air.

"Jesus Christ, Sam," he said. Castiel straightened, affronted. "Don't even try that 'holier than thou' bullshit with me today, okay? You spent two hours bitching about this asshole last night."

"I didn't want him dead!" Sam protested.

"You said you hoped he was our werewolf so we could kill him."

"I was _joking_!"

"Just - " Castiel held up his own hands in an effort to silence the brothers' bickering. "Who killed him?"

"I did." Dean sighed, but Castiel wasn't sure how contrite he actually was.

"Yeah. _I_ wouldn't've killed him unless he was a werewolf," Sam proclaimed. Dean responded by taking a step towards him, and Castiel flew between them in order to shove them away from each other.

"Cease this immediately," he ordered, glaring at one, then the other. To Dean, he said, " _You_ need to get your temper and your urges under control, and _you_ \- " Now he addressed Sam. " - are a human-demon hybrid who released Lucifer and is just generally an affront to God. If you truly believe you are 'holier' than your brother, as Dean seems to suspect, you are _deeply_ mistaken."

They both drew back. Sam was wearing a peculiar expression; Castiel believed Dean referred to it as his "bitchface."

"He wasn't a werewolf, was he?" Dean asked after a few seconds of silence.

Castiel glanced at the soul, who seemed to be in shock. He was just sitting behind his desk, staring at nothing. "No."

"Course not." Sam sighed deeply, putting his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. "That would've been too easy...especially because I don't actually think you can kill werewolves by breaking their necks."

"Was this one also a sexual predator?" Castiel asked, though he already knew the answer. The soul was too bright to have committed a sin of that magnitude.

"Nah."

"Then why..." Angels of the Lord, Castiel reminded himself, did not get angry. He did his best to remain calm. "...did you kill him?"

"'Cause he was a dick," Dean replied.

"He really was," Sam admitted.

Castiel was familiar enough with English slang by now to know that they didn't literally mean the man was male genitalia. The intended definition, however, didn't really seem to justify what had happened here.

"That is not an appropriate excuse for murder," he said. Just in case they didn't know.

"I don't think you get it," Dean said. "This guy was a _huge_ dick."

"Still not appropriate."

"Well, I mean...you didn't have to deal with him, Cas," Sam pointed out. "The very first thing he said to us was... _unbelievably_ homophobic - "

"So he mistook you two for a couple, did he? Astuteness is hardly a sin."

" - and then we had to work with him all day yesterday," Sam finished, ignoring Castiel. Having been reprimanded, he was apparently on his brother's side now. "Then he was even worse today, and...well..."

"I snapped," Dean stated. Looking down at the body and its oddly-angled neck, he added, "Literally."

Castiel just stared at the two of them.

"What the hell're you people doing in my office?" the soul demanded from behind him.

"I'd tell you I'm sorry," Dean said, "but, honestly, I don't regret it all that much." He shrugged. "He kinda had it coming."

"Still. Probably shouldn't've done it," Sam told him, sounding much less judgmental than he had earlier.

"Yeah, probably, but no harm done, right, Cas?" Dean asked. "Since you can bring him back and all."

"That is _not_ the point here," Castiel replied, walking over to the desk and snapping out a wing to grab the soul. "I'm not doing this again, Sam and Dean. I mean it."

"Okay - you won't have to," Sam said quietly. Dean nodded, looking sincere.

Even with that, Castiel was not at all surprised at the prayer he received about eight hours later: "Cas, we need you to do it again."

It was from Dean. As Castiel wearily spread his wings, he added, with an unmistakable note of vindictive amusement, "Sam screwed the pooch."

Sam, to his credit, had the manners to send a meek and embarrassed "Sorry" while Castiel was on his way. Which, unfortunately, did nothing to relieve his irritation.

"At least it was a whore this time," Castiel observed when he arrived. "Rather than a man of the law."

"Hey - she was a stripper, not a whore," Dean said. "Have some respect for the dead, Cas. God."

Castiel tipped his head back and looked up at the darkened sky, mouth working, as he resisted the urge to smack Dean into one of the brick walls of the alley they were in with a wing. Or to point out the utter lack of respect that he had had for the living recently. Eventually, he returned his attention to the Winchesters and the bloody corpse between them. Dean was in an inappropriately good mood - possibly because it wasn't his victim with a messy bullet wound in the side of her tightly-corseted chest - and Sam was very, very embarrassed. Not guilty, though, as far as Castiel could tell. That was disheartening.

"So I understand it's your mess I'm expected to clean up this time," he told the younger of the two. "That's a refreshing change, I suppose."

"I'm really sorry, Castiel," Sam blurted. "My - I didn't have my safety on, and my gun went off by acci - "

"Bullshit," Dean interjected. It probably would have carried more weight if he hadn't been noticeably suppressing a smile.

"Stop enjoying this right now," Castiel ordered, pointing at him. "You are a bad person." To Sam, he said, "I'm confused. Once again. Don't you two usually keep your guns in the backs of your pants?" Not a wise move, Castiel believed, despite his limited understanding of guns. He'd honestly just been waiting for the day when he was called in to heal a bullet-ridden pair of buttocks.

"Well, yeah, usually, but - this is a strip club." He pointed to one of the buildings whose backs made up the alley.

Castiel nodded as patiently as he could. He understood that that was where one generally found strippers, but what he didn't understand was what it had to do with Sam's gun.

"Well, the werewolf's been eating stripper hearts, mostly," Sam went on. "Attacking them when they come out. So we're waiting for it here. I took my gun out when somebody came back, because I thought it might be the werewolf, but it was just...her." He looked down at the body.

Castiel glanced around for the soul. She didn't glow very brightly, so it took him a moment to spot her where she was standing under a neon sign that presumably marked the back entrance to the club. She was trying unsuccessfully to light fire to one of the paper-and-tar tubes that Castiel saw so many humans holding in their mouths, but she straightened when she noticed him looking at her.

"My own damn fault," she sighed, casting a regretful glance at her body. She didn't seem terribly bothered, though. "Should've guessed they were a couple - it was pretty obvious - and kept my distance. Fairies are _crazy_ jealous."

"I believe it was an accident," Castiel told her, confused as to why she thought Sam and Dean were sidhe but deciding he didn't care enough to ask.

"It was," Sam confirmed. "My finger slipped."

"Bullshit," Dean and the soul said in unison. Castiel looked at the two of them. They were fairly close to each other, as usual, so he could easily see them both at once.

"What do you think happened, then?" he asked neutrally.

"Well, Sammy was jealous, of course," Dean replied, probably unable, in this dim light, to see the way his younger brother blushed and glowered at that. He might not have noticed even if the lighting was better; if he'd had wings, he would've been preening. "See, when we were inside talking to witnesses, she - " He gestured to the body. " - was _all_ over me."

"I don't meet a lot of good-looking guys in my line of work," the harlot's soul explained. "It _looked_ like he was with Lurch over there, but I figured, what's the harm in trying?" She rolled her eyes. "A lot, apparently."

"She must've come back here to seal the deal," Dean said with a shrug. "Guess Sam just couldn't handle that, seeing as how nobody's given him a second look since I made demon kebab out of Ruby."

"Okay, one, no way in hell would I ever _kill_ somebody just because they went for you and not me," Sam protested, as the female soul looked at Dean with a raised eyebrow. "And two, screw you!" It's not like Ruby was my last one." Hm. Castiel noticed the slight dilation of Sam's pupils and the incremental increase in his blood pressure. That had been a lie. "At any rate, I'm getting more than _you,_ seeing as how you aren't even interested anymore. You totally blew her off!" Now Sam indicated the body.

"He did," its detached soul confirmed. "But I'm in the middle of a dry spell, too, so I told myself he might just be playing hard to get."

"That's not..." Dean was no longer enjoying himself. Sam had hurt him. "...totally true."

"What isn't?"

"That I'm not interested."

"Are they together, or aren't they?" the soul asked, squinting at the Winchesters. "I thought they were, but now I'm not so sure."

"They are not," Castiel told her.

"Who's not what?" Dean, looking at him.

"Who are you talking to, Cas?" Sam.

"Wait a minute, can you hear me?" the soul asked, incredulous. "I thought I was dead."

"You are, but I'm an angel of the Lord," Castiel told her, ignoring the Winchesters, who'd gone back to talking to each other ("A ghost?" "Must be. Pretty sure he can see a lot of things we can't").

"Whoa," the soul said, clearly impressed. "I though there might be something weird about you, with the way you seemed to appear out of nowhere and all, but...whoa." She smiled. Her ethereal teeth were in less than ideal condition, and Castiel suspected that her physical ones matched. "I never would've figured I was going to Heaven."

"You aren't," Castiel stated, then held out a wing. "Now, come here. I need to return you to your flesh before you attract a reaper - I'm honestly surprised one hasn't already arrived."

As the soul grudgingly allowed herself to be put back where she belonged, Castiel glanced at his charges. They had finished discussing his abilities and returned to arguing about Dean's desire, or lack thereof, for intercourse with the same loose women he'd enjoyed before his time in Hell. They were doing so very loudly. Watching them, Castiel felt the patience he'd worked so hard to cultivate wearing dangerously thin.

"Please be quiet," he said wearily. That didn't work. So, at the end of his rope, he raised a hand and snapped, _"Stop."_

That abruptly ended their bickering. They looked at him, and he couldn't tell if they were confused or annoyed. He didn't particularly care either way.

"Listen to me," Castiel said. "I am _not_ doing this anymore." He pointed to the body, which he had yet to heal and reanimate. To Sam, he said, "Envy is a sin, and so is murder. You do not get to kill those who attempt to court your brother simply because of your extremely unhealthy attachment to him."

"It was an accident!" Sam protested once again, blushing for a second time.

Dean, on the other hand, whistled, apparently back to enjoying Sam getting scolded.

"I think he means business," he said. "You better not kill anybody else unless you want 'em to stay dead."

"I was talking to you, too," Castiel replied, kneeling to heal the Sam-inflicted bullet wound in the stripper's ribcage. "If you summon me to reverse another one of your mistakes, Dean, I swear on Heaven itself that I will put your soul right back where I found it."

That silenced Dean. Castiel was pleased.

Regardless, he very much doubted they'd have any more luck keeping themselves in check this time than they had the last two. That was why he was wary when Sam prayed to him again not long after their conversation in the alley, sounding near-hysterical. He debated with himself, but ultimately decided to go to him, seeing as he hadn't mentioned anything about a resurrection. Just that he had made a big mistake and needed Castiel's help.

It was with great dismay that Castiel landed in the Winchesters' hotel room and realized that the "mistake" had indeed been another murder. It was unmistakable: the small of blood, brain, and bone hung heavy in the air, along with that of gunpowder and metal, and Castiel's Grace resonated with the energy of a very powerful soul that had just been released from its moorings.

Castiel cast as dark a look as he could manage at Sam, who was sitting on the edge of his bed with his large hands folded loosely around the handgun resting in his lap. He was pale, but didn't look anywhere near as regretful as Castiel would have liked him to.

When Castiel followed his gaze to where his victim was sprawled out across the other bed, though, his anger momentarily vanished. His wings bristled and a sensation of icy weakness crawled through his Grace. It was an extremely unpleasant shock, to see the man his garrison had put back together dead.

"Oh my Dad," Castiel blurted. "What did you do?"

"It was an accident!" Sam quickly replied.

"You know, Sam, I'm beginning to get very tired of you having 'accidents' all over the place," Castiel snapped back. "Especially because I'm also beginning to wonder if any of them have actually been accidents."

"I really didn't mean t - "

"You _double-tapped_ him!" Castiel pointed towards Dean's body with all the emphasis he could muster, and pushed down the pride he felt at having actually remembered one of the many terms his charges had tried to teach him during their time together. This was not the time. "Forgive me if I'm having trouble believing that you didn't _mean_ to do that!"

"I - " Pausing, Sam bit his lip, then bowed his head. "I was just so _pissed_ at him. He was eating freaking _crackers,_ in _my_ bed, and this is gotta be at least the tenth time this week he's done that. And he wouldn't cut it out no matter how many times I asked him, and he said he couldn't do it on _his_ bed 'cause he didn't wanna get crumbs all over the sheets, and I was cleaning the guns - "

Castiel threw up his hands and turned his back on Sam to cut him off, a gesture of disbelief he'd learned from the brothers themselves.

"Are you...are you gonna bring him back?" Sam asked in a rather quiet voice.

"I don't know," Castiel replied. On the one wing, Dean was vitally important to the fate of the world as it had been mapped out by the Lord Himself. On the other, Sam really needed to be taught a lesson. Also, Castiel was starting to worry that his ability to revive the recently-dead might have something to do with the Winchesters' lack of discretion lately.

"You...don't know?" Sam repeated, sounding confused. "What d'you mean by that?"

"I mean that I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to resurrect your brother." Castiel turned back around in order to look at Sam. "I do recall warning you that I wasn't going to do this again."

"What kind of bullshit is that?" Sam was getting worked up again. Castiel wasn't particularly concerned, seeing that this wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him. "This is _Dean_! And you're just gonna dick around 'til a reaper shows up? Or - or a demon?" Sam stood and tossed his gun onto the other bed, beside Dean's body, glaring at Castiel. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

That got under Castiel's skin - metaphorically speaking, since his true form didn't actually have any skin. He advanced on Sam, wings flared aggressively in a display that would have cowed most lesser angels into submission...but which, unfortunately, had no effect on a human (or Sam), who wasn't able to see them.

"What's wrong with me." It was Castiel's turn to repeat, in a low, level voice. Sam shrank back as he approached, apparently acting according to instinct - human, demon, or both - as he sat again. " _You_ found a minor breach of modern bedroom etiquette a perfectly-acceptable justification for the cold-blooded shooting of the man who is not only almost single-handedly responsible for the final outcome of billions upon billions of years of history, but is also your own soulmate. And you think something is wrong with _me_."

Sam stared up at him, wide-eyed and hunch-shouldered. For a moment, Castiel thought he'd actually gotten through to him. That hearing someone else describe his recent actions had made him realize just how very wrong he'd been. But then he opened his mouth and said, "Wait...he's also my what, now?"

Shaking his head in disgust, Castiel turned away from Sam and focused his attention on Dean. He supposed he had to bring him back. After all, it was hardly fair to punish him - and, indeed, the entire world - for what his brother had done.

For the first time since he'd arrived in the room, it occurred to Castiel that he couldn't see Dean's soul anywhere. He was on the verge of panicking when he realized that the soul was still tucked inside the body. Hiding. Considering that Dean had been seized in the jaws of hellhounds and dragged down into the pit the last time that he had left his body, Castiel could hardly blame him.

He began with healing the bullet wounds, one in Dean's forehead and the other directly below the hollow of his throat. If nothing else, he had to admit that Sam had excellent aim. Speaking of Sam, he had the decency not to say a word while Castiel worked.

Once the wounds had been dealt with, Castiel restarted all of Dean's major functions with a touch and a light infusion of Grace. His charge jerked violently, the pupils of the eyes that had been staring sightlessly up at the ceiling contracting as he sucked in a loud, wet-sounding breath. Castiel stepped back out of respect for the personal space he was so fond of, his foot bumping against something as he did so. He looked down to see a box of crackers - presumably the ones that had set Sam off in the first place.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed as his brother hauled himself up into a sitting position, sounding genuinely happy.

Dean coughed, then ran a hand over his chest and face. When he found no holes, he demanded, voice more gravelly than usual, "You fucking asshole, did you _shoot_ me?"

Castiel glanced at Sam just in time to see regret flood his face.

"I'm so - " he began, but Dean didn't let him finish.

"You _killed_ me, you bastard!" he shouted. "'Sorry' doesn't cut it!"

Then he lunged at Sam, too quickly for Castiel to react. Sam himself barely managed to yelp in surprise before Dean hit him, knocking him off the other side of the bed and onto the floor as he wrapped one hand around his throat and used the other to yank at his hair. They struggled, both shouting, as Castiel rapidly walked around the bed to try and break them up.

"This - is - the - second - goddamn - time!" Dean yelled, slamming Sam's head into the floor with every word. "At least it was an accident when you did me with the axe!"

" _That_ was - fucking Gabriel, not - me!" Sam yelled back, voice choked as he tried to slam a knee into Dean's groin. "And _next_ time - I'm - gonna _burn_ your ass - 'stead of asking Cas to bring you _back_!"

Dean responded to that by throttling Sam with both hands, effectively cutting off his air supply. Castiel knew he should put an end to this, but Dean did have ever right to be angry, and he wasn't entirely sure how to pull them safely off each other, anyway. At any rate, it ended on its own a couple of seconds later, with a loud cracking noise.

"Now we're even, _bitch_." Dean lifted Sam's head by the hair so he could glare into the wide hazel eyes, then lowered it back to the floor almost gently. It lolled unnaturally on Sam's freshly-broken neck as he climbed off of him. Straightening up, he froze, seeming to notice Castiel for the first time.

"Uh," he tried. "Whoops?"

"You are going to Hell," Castiel told him seriously. "Again."

Dean wilted at that. "I...I'm really sorry...I know you're over this, I just...y'know, wasn't thinking." He sighed heavily. "Can you fix him? Please?"

"Yes," Castiel replied, pleased by the way Dean had phrased the request. "In a moment." He looked down at Sam's body, the soul of which had climbed out of it and was sitting nearby on the floor, elbows on his knees and face blank. "After all, he did rather deserve it."

"I didn't!" Sam protested.

"You _did_."

"Damn straight," Dean agreed, moving between the two beds. He picked up the crackers, ripped back the covers of what must have been Sam's bed, and dumped the remaining contents of the box onto the sheets.

Sam cried out in anger, leaping to his feet. Castiel grabbed him with a wing and shoved him back into his meat before he could start making lightbulbs explode.

"As you said, though." Castiel knelt and realigned Sam's spinal column, repairing the cord where it had been severed. "You're even. So please don't kill each other again."

Oh, how depressing it was to mean that literally. He would have much rather it had been his first use of hyperbole.

"Yeah, of course," Dean agreed, nodding. "Won't snap his neck ever again. Promise."

So Castiel revived Sam and extracted the same guarantee from him. Within seconds, he and Dean were screaming at each other again, but at least they weren't getting violent. He left.

He believed them this time, which was probably a measure of how naive he still was when it came to humans.

He'd set himself up for the intense disappointment he felt several days later, when he was called back to the motel room to put Sam's blood back inside his body and resurrect him again. That didn't stop him from taking it out on Dean, though, lecturing him for close to an hour on his extremely-poor impulse control and his very weak excuse for his actions (that Sam had not put fuel in Dean's car, even after being explicitly asked to do so, because he hadn't wanted to pay for it).

Then he chased off the very excited reaper that had shown up during that hour, charging at full speed and loudly flapping his wings. He'd never say so, but it pleased him that someone was finally appreciating his threat displays. He brought Sam back after he finished with that, then lectured _him_ on how terrible, if understandable, it would be if he were to seek revenge on Dean. Hopefully, this disturbing pattern that the two of them had fallen into would end with him.

They both looked thoroughly cowed by the time he was finished, but Castiel knew better than to hope, yet again, for a ceasefire. He left them expecting to be summoned back to revive another Winchester within the week, and this time, he was not disappointed. Although he would have liked to be.

First, Sam delivered a fatal blow to the back of Dean's head with a heavy lamp base when he mixed their laundry together in an effort to force his younger brother to do it all.

Then Dean drowned Sam in a puddle for missing the monster they were currently hunting with all six of the shots he'd taken at it.

Then Sam literally stabbed Dean in the back for fornicating with a witness.

Then Dean suffocated Sam with a pillow for snoring.

Then Sam strangled Dean to death for chewing too loudly.

And on and on and on, for days that turned into weeks that turned into months. The things they killed each other over became pettier and pettier, as well as more and more frequent, until their knee-jerk reaction to one of them doing something to offend the other was murder. Instead of, say, issuing a warning or talking about it...but discussing their feelings with one another had never been their strong suit, as Castiel had discovered within the first few days of meeting them both.

The only solution seemed to be to keep a constant eye on the two of them, which allowed Castiel to step in and head off any attempts on each other's lives. They were very vocal about how much they resented being "babysat," but Castiel was quick in turn to remind them that they'd proven themselves incapable of functioning without angelic supervision. And that neither of them were babies.

It worked. For a while. Tensions were high and both Winchesters were sullen and stubborn about the most minute of things, but as far as Castiel was concerned, they could pout as much as they wanted as long as they weren't dismembering each other. But then he was summoned to Heaven for a meeting with his superiors.

That was never something to look forward to even under the most ideal of conditions, which these were decidedly not. It wasn't as if Castiel could refuse, however, and he was assured over the wavelengths his kind used to communicate that no more than ten or fifteen minutes would pass on Earth during the meeting.

"I won't be gone long," Castiel told the Winchesters, who were seated on a motel room couch - very pointedly at opposite ends from each other - watching television. "Hopefully not even long enough for one of you to do something irritating." They were doing much better on that; murderous rage-inducing slights had been happening every fifteen minutes, but were now down to only once every hour. "But if I _do_ happen to come back and find one of you dead..." Castiel stepped in front of the television set and leaned in close to the brothers, wings flaring automatically. There will be very literal Hell to pay. For both the victim and the survivor." There was no longer anything resembling an innocent party when these incidents occurred.

"Jesus, Cas." Dean, leaning away from him, looked annoyed. "We get it. Look, it's been a whole - " He twisted to look at the small, cheap whiteboard, a number scrawled on it that morning, taped to the wall of the room. Sam had bought it several hunts back, saying something about workplace safety standards, and Castiel appreciated it for the good idea it was. " - twenty days since I killed him." Dean gestured to Sam. "Or he killed me. You can trust us for fifteen goddamn minutes."

"Can I?" Castiel asked, skeptical.

 _"Yes,"_ Sam replied. "Though...if we _do_ manage to piss each other off..." His expression turned thoughtful. "Is non-fatal stuff okay?"

"Ooh, yeah - like beating the crap outta each other," Dean agreed enthusiastically.

"I was thinking more like shooting kneecaps, or feet," Sam responded. Then, archly, added, "Or downstairs brains."

"Maybe we could just cut pieces like that off," Dean said acidly. "Not like you'd even notice the difference."

"No - you are _not_ allowed to mutilate each other while I'm gone," Castiel interjected forcefully. He would have cut them off sooner, but he'd been preoccupied by the information that humans apparently had a second, lower brain. What could they possibly use it for? "In fact, you're not to even lay a hand on one another until I return."

Both looked unmistakably disappointed that they weren't even allowed to touch. Then, glancing at each other and realizing what expressions they were wearing, they both hastily assumed unconvincing, nonchalant ones. Castiel stared at them for a long moment, then shook his head.

"I hate you both," he said fervently before leaving.

It wasn't until later that he would learn to appreciate irony, but this meeting with those who oversaw him was definitely saturated with it, even if he didn't register that fact at the time. They wanted to know why his two human charges had died dozens of times in quick succession, and why he had been using massive amounts of energy to resurrect them. He meekly replied that everything was under control, knowing they wouldn't understand if he attempted to explain exactly what had been happening between the Winchesters. And he prayed, as silently as an angel was able, to a God he'd never met, that neither interrogation nor reprogramming would be necessary this time around.

They weren't. In fact, he was released after only nine minutes had passed on Earth - ahead of schedule, in other words. As Castiel descended, he couldn't stop a fragile optimism from growing in him. Maybe everything would go well from here on out. Maybe the Winchesters would behave. Maybe his overseers would be proud of him.

That optimistic feeling, and all those hopes, vanished like a punctured soap bubble when he arrived back in Sam and Dean's room.

It was, to put things mildly, a mess. Furniture had been knocked over and moved out of place. The television set was lying screen-down on the carpet, surrounded by shards of gray glass; several lamps had also been smashed to pieces. Four bullets were embedded in the walls at various points (a part of Castiel was momentarily concerned that the shots may summon either law enforcement or concerned civilians, but not for long. No one ever seemed to hear the Winchesters' gunshots). There was a worryingly-large bloodstain marring the brown carpet near the overturned couch, and Castiel could tell by the scent that it had come from Dean. The teeth scattered around it, however, were Sam's.

The brothers were in the middle of all this destruction, locked in what was almost assuredly mortal combat. They were surrounded by weapons displaying varying degrees of use, and both were bloody and bruised, clothing torn and stained. Sam, lying on his back and holding a knife in a near-perfect position to gut Dean, was missing a large patch of long chestnut hair - and the scalp beneath it. Dean was on top of him, one hand wrapped around his wrist, straining to keep the knife away fro himself, and the other forearm pressed firmly across his younger sibling's windpipe. Castiel was uncertain if he'd lost an eye or if the blood from the bite wound on his temple, sheeting down the side of his face, had simply obscured it.

They'd both frozen when Castiel had reappeared. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. All he could do was stare at them in shock, and wonder just why he was so shocked by this in the first place.

Dean was the first to break the silence. He cleared his throat, spat blood (onto Sam's face), then almost casually said, "Y'know, this is basically your fault." Pinned under his arm, Sam managed a nod of agreement.

At that, Castiel drew in a deep breath he didn't need, unfurling his wings.

And then, much like Dean had several months prior, he snapped.

Literally.

Angelic Grace conferred certain psychic powers, such as telekinesis, on its bearers. Those powers weakened and dwindled the lower an angel's caste was, but seraphs like Castiel could still manipulate things without physically touching them. Before his Fall, Lucifer had taught him how to use that to break fragile human bones, a trick he brought into play now.

He really did miss Lucifer sometimes, Castiel reflected idly as he stepped over the bodies, with their twisted necks, on his way to the door. He felt the need to leave manually right now.

He would go for a walk. He would take as long as he needed for his anger to abate and his affection for his charges - thin as it may be worn at the moment - to reassert itself. And then he would return to the motel room, resurrect Sam and Dean, and have a series of long, serious talks with them. Concerning such subjects as the deep-seated psychological problems that must have allowed them to fall into this disturbing pattern in the first place.

Or maybe he'd just travel far, far, _far_ back in time, and stomp a certain fish into extremely-important paste before it could ever even fully drag itself onto the shore.


End file.
